Payment cards with magnetic stripe and EMV chip functions are well-known in the art. Additionally, protocols for the testing of these traditional payment cards have been developed and used by various payment card companies in order to determine their functionality, durability and usefulness. Examples of a payment card company include MasterCard, American Express, Diners Club, Discover Card, Visa Inc, etc. New extended-functionality card offerings are appearing that utilize emerging technologies such as flexible displays, enhanced smart chips, tiny lights, wafer-thin batteries, etc., to enhance the capabilities of payment cards beyond those of traditional magnetic stripe and EMV chip functions. These new cards with additional components are referred to herein as “extended-functionality cards.”
While these new devices offer great opportunity to a payment card company and its members, they also introduce new challenges. Due to their enhanced components, these cards may be considered “consumer electronics” devices. As such, financial institutions, distributors, personalizers, vendors or others seeking to deploy these cards must understand how this class of new devices can benefit or impact a payment card company's branded products. Thorough testing is required to confirm the intrinsic safety and durability of the cards, as well as review for other impacts upon issuance and acceptance environments.
For example, increasing public awareness of the impacts that products and their manufacturing processes have on the environment has engendered efforts to control and mitigate these impacts. The efforts of product designers and manufacturers have focused on the life cycles of the products, from design through end-of-life stages, and have targeted changes in design, process improvements, transportation and packaging requirements, reduction of toxic material use, and pollution prevention, with the goal of ensuring sustainable product stewardship on a global scale.
In light of the above situation, there is a need for the identification of potential areas that vendors of these new extended-functionality cards should address prior to such products being allowed to issue to cardholders. To be considered for a payment card company's branding, financial institutions, suppliers and vendors, in general, should comply with the following requirements, including but not limited to:
Comply with all national and international applicable laws, regulations (including regional directives and country-specific laws), and industry standards that affect its stewardship of the products;
Review, understand, and comply with the requirements in this document;
Track relevant regulations, industry standards, and guidelines to ensure that they stay current with changing requirements;
Use only the payment card company's approved laboratories to conduct testing;
All relevant testing policies and procedures of the payment card company;
Submit documentation to the payment card company or its approved laboratories as outlined in this requirements document;
Re-evaluate compliance and submit additional documentation as appropriate should manufacturing processes or supplier of components or subassemblies change;
Provide additional documentation to the payment card company or its laboratories upon request.
If issues associated with a particular extended-functionality card is brought to the payment card company's attention by a credible source (e.g., regulatory body, non-governmental organization [NGO], or testing laboratory), it will be the payment card company's policy to investigate and review the situation, to require that modifications are made as appropriate, or to take such other action as may be appropriate.
In summary, there is a need for clearly delineated testing protocols for extended-functionality payment cards.